Wednesday, March 19, 2014

Scientists discover new "Chicken from Hell" dinosaur

I found this story through TPM.com:
Chicken from Hell Dinosaur.  From TPM.com.

The newly discovered species, Anzu wyliei, is part of the oviraptorosaur group of dinosaurs, but has been unofficially dubbed the "Chicken from Hell."
Scientists found fossil specimens of the new species in in a sedimentary rock layer called the Hell Creek Formation in North and South Dakota, which helped inspire the nickname.
The four scientists who helped discover the new species published a paper on the "Chicken from Hell" in the PLOS Journal on Wednesday.
The dinosaur was five feet tall and eleven feet long, with a very long tail and feathers on the arms, according to the Smithsonian. It lived at the end of the Cretaceous period -- from about 68 million to 66 million years ago.
"This group of dinosaurs looks really bizarre even by dinosaurian standards," Hans-Dieter Sues, one of the paleontologists who wrote the paper on the new species, told the Washington Post.
I have four pet chickens.  They are free-ranging little omnivores, eating grass, dandelions, bugs, slugs, worms, and even these little blue-bellied lizards I have in the back yard.  There are times I'll watch them for an hour in a chicken-zen bliss.  I'm wondering if, someday, my ladies are dreaming of becoming this aspiring role model? 

My own little Dinosaurs from Hell

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